350 kms in 5 days on a bike with 9 boys

That is what Mike did for his first of 2 weeks off this August:

5 l o n g days of biking and camping
350 kms (roughly 217 miles) of road biking and bike trails both up & down
950 metres (roughly 1000 yards) up in elevation on the 4th day of the trip
9 boys ages 14-18
19 power bars (nutrition bars)
4 cans of stagg chili & 6 packets of instant mashed potatoes
5 falls off the bike - over the handle bars type bails
1 MASSIVE gash on the leg (that probably could have used stitches at the time)
= 1 great and memorable scout trip

It looks small, but it is deep and wide and about 2 inches long on his shin!
It bled for about 3 days!

I have it on good authority that he and the other leader, Joe, were showing off the whole time. Mike denies this. I believe my source - seriously, the cut on his leg wasn't from riding, it was from doing bunny hops on his bike at the campsite the first day :) Mike has developed/re-discovered a love for mountain biking and he and Joe plan on spending some quality time together doing some local downhill runs. He came home sore, stiff, stinky, and most importantly pleased with the boys and with himself for accomplishing what they did! AWESOME!

The Summer of Jane Austen

I get really busy in the school year. So much so that I don't get to do one of my favourite things very often. I LOVE READING. I love read both fiction and non-fiction, with fiction being my favourite - I can devour a book, once I start, I have a hard time putting it down. Because of this I have to be choosy about when I start a book - it has to be a time when I know I will have 2-3 days where I can neglect most other things. well, not my children. okay, sometimes my children. I participate in a book group every month which helps me to make time for reading, and since I am not picking the books, I am generally not going through them so quickly.

Sometimes the book group does a theme night - last June was Jane Austen. We learned some little known facts about her ~ did you know she is turning 235 on December 16th? and we discussed our favourite of her books ~ Pride & Prejudice, obviously! and we learned an English Country dance that they did in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice (which is a GREAT movie). This dance is called the Tythe Pig, found in this clip,



and we ate some yummy food. I was inspired. I have read all Jane Austen's books before, and I do enjoy them, although I LOVE Pride & Prejudice, and Emma and Sense & Sensibility are up there. The others are my least favourite. I left the book club with 4 of my friend Candise's Jane Austen spinoffs/companion books written by other authors and decided that I would go for it, and just have the summer of Jane Austen.

And I have! It. has. been. awesome!

The summer I have read:
Pride & Prejudice
Confessions of Fitzwilliam Darcy - this book is SO good! I highly recommend it. In fact, I highly recommend reading it right after you read P&P or alongside P&P. It gives totally interesting insight into the character of Mr. Darcy, in a believable way which is consistent with my view of his character from the original book

.

Austenland - a quick fun read about a girl obsessed with Jane Austen. Sounds familiar!
Emma
Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure - a fun read - you can easily pick it up and read a bit and put it down again, because like all choose your own adventure type books, the story can end in an instant based on the choices you make as you go along. You act as Elizabeth Bennet through the story. Some of my endings include:
- killing my husband Mr. Collins with a copy of Fordyce's Sermons
- marrying and living happily ever after with Colonel Brandon (from S&S)
- living as Fanny Price's prisoner (who imprisons you because all the other heroines from the other stories live in your shadow)
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies - which normally isn't my thing, but the Zombies are worked in there quite humourously and it did make me laugh regularly. This one took me a lot longer because I was more interested in the others I think.
Mr. Darcy's Diary - I do not recommend it. The author added in tons of sexuality and aspects of Darcy's character that I did not enjoy, it didn't fit with my view of the character!

This summer I watched:
Emma (BBC, 2009) - this one is FABULOUS - I highly recommend it! So very very good. I completely buy into the Mr Knightly/Emma relationship in this one. Love it!
Pride & Prejudice (2005 - the Keira Knightly one) - always good. wanted to revisit the BBC Colin Firth version too, but couldn't get my hands on it - where are you Karyn??
Mansfield Park (BBC 2007) - it's a good version ... sort of hard for me to watch the actor who played the cheesy, kind of greasy Mr. Elton in the Emma up there play the beloved Edmund for this version's Fanny Price!
Sense & Sensibility (with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet) - this was my very first exposure to Jane Austen. I love this movie more than I love the book, I think!
Lost in Austen (2008 British Miniseries) - Not to be confused with the Choose Your Own Adventure book up there, it is based on another book of the same name. It is about a girl in modern London who changes places with Elizabeth Bennett and thus changes the entire story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Since I was in that era, I did watch a few others like North & South (the train scene about 100 times), Wives & Daughters, and Jane Eyre (2010).

The culminating event of the summer was a Jane Austen Society tea/lunch. I went last night and learned and danced 10 English Country dances, including the Tythe Pig from the opening of Pride & Prejudice (2005), the Mr. Darcy/Lizzy Bennett dance, and this ultimately romantic dance in the 2009 Emma between Mr Knightly and Emma:



Mr Knightly: Who will you dance with?
Emma: Why you ...
If you will ask me.

ahhhhhhh - so wonderful! looks like I will have to watch it again this week :)

and that is my summer of Austen. Highly satisfying.

White Rock Beach

I spent much of my youth at White Rock Beach - playing there, hanging there, working there (at Sara's ice cream when it used to be called that), so it is wonderful for me to spend time with my little ones there, playing in the sun and sand.

This past week we went to the beach at low tide with some fabulous friends and spent the day. We sat, we dug, we found shells and sand dollars, we boogie boarded (sort of), we ate snacks and sand, we walked and walked, and had yummy gelato.

When we left the house it was VERY cloudy, and as we crested the bridge by our home, all we could see forever (or so it seemed) was clouds rolling in. I said to my kids ' don't worry, it is always sunny in White Rock'. And guess what?!? when we got there, there was not a cloud in the sky, and it stayed that way for the entire day! It was beautiful. One thing I loved was that before I even got the blanket down, my kids were digging in the sand. They got right down in there and dug a trench deep enough that it filled with water on its own. Kaya went off to the edge of the water with her great friend, and Keidis just kept on digging and playing. Ophelia found an ankle high pool on the beach and sat, squatted, and laid in it for most of the time. And Kellan ran back and forth with his shovel and ate. Most of what he got in his mouth was sand.

It was a great day with great friends. We are loving getting to know this family and spend time with them. Their children (who are Kaya's age and older) are so sweet with our own little ones - we appreciate so much their friendship!All these excellent photos are taken by Tim of Tim Fitzgerald photography.

Family movie night

Every once in a while we have a family movie night. We all get into our pj's and snuggle into blankets and pillows on our cozy corner couch downstairs and watch a video together. Tonight it was Disney's classic Robin Hood. I love the snuggles and comraderie we share as we spend some time together and take a little break from the go go go which seems to define us sometimes. And the popcorn, I love the popcorn!

Here is a photo of the crew - it is a bit grainy taken from the iPad, as we don't have a working camera right now.

Also, you will note Kellan's outfit. As the baby of the family, he gets dressed up often. And he can really pull off the tutu.

And, I am not sure what is happening in the movie - but everyone appears to be a bit stressed out :)

miss ophelia

Here she is having her morning cuddle. What you can't see below is the line up of dinos, sheep, and small dolls that she has been carrying around with her in her purse. She pulls them out at any given time so they can have a little play. She is wonderful - she is creative and independent, she laughs a lot & and cries a lot - she feels emotions very keenly. She plays on her own with toys, creating families and friendships, often singing about what is happening in her play world. She loves to dance and snuggle. Her preferred clothing choices are dress-up princess dresses, jammie dresses, and skirts, in that order. She has this great vocabulary, and just said to me this morning 'Mom, that is actually excellent!' ... She is a light in our family and we love having her in our home! She has really grown up compared to this photo taken 2 years ago!

This is your LIFE

This is a poster by Holstee, a company that makes clothing and curates other interesting things. I came across it on Facebook and have been thinking about it for days. I am all about finding quotes and things that resonate with who I am, or who I want to be ...

as a mama to some home learners - I am constantly sorting out my philosophy, on life, on education, and really ... on what I want my children to learn. And you know what?? What I actually want them to learn is that they don't HAVE to learn anything

~ they GET to learn about whatever they want ~ they GET to explore their interests, their hearts' desires, themselves ~ they GET to find out what their passion is, and start to pursue that.

I want them to learn that everything is within reach if they are truly interested and motivated. Will the ABCs and the math facts and such come as a result of that? Absolutely - they will learn those things in the context of needing them for their everyday life and as they pursue their dreams and passions. My role in their education is to provide them with the resources, opportunities, and support to try out new things as they work to discover their passions. To help them learn what skills they will need to achieve their dreams and to assist them through the inevitable failures.

I want them to know that these are THEIR lives and they can choose how they unfold!

I will follow this post in a few days with Kaya's and Keidis' learning plans (for the upcoming 'school' year) which they have been thoughtfully creating over the summer.

we are the kenyons

I needed a fresh start - a blog that wasn't waiting for me to make a post for 2 years, a blog I didn't feel like I needed to catch up on - a blog that could chronicle the adventures of the Kenyon Clan. Photo by Debra of dmphotography

So here it is.

September is a natural time of setting goals for our family ~ Mike's work starts a new semester, my work starts a new learning year, the kids start a new learning year. It is a great time to set a plan, make some goals, start new things.

One of my goals for this upcoming year is to become a better journal writer - I want my children to have records of their lives, of my life, of important events in our family. I want to get back to blogging regularly. We learn at home, and the kids are enrolled with a program called (SelfDesign). This program requires us to write a learning journal each week for the school-aged kids (Kaya & Keidis). So I hope to make this blog worthy and post them each week with photos. I also hope to print them each week and then bind them to make a nice family journal.

I want to document our lives with photos - so I NEED a new camera (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), and plan to scrapbook 8 pages a year (to add to the scrapbooks I make for some of my parents each year ... I know, it doesn't sound like much but trust me - it is a lot ...) and I may try to do it using digital scrapbooking. I hope to incorporate the photos into blog posts, learning journals, and into my own journal.

For my own journaling - it will hopefully take a few different forms. We are going to go back to regular family journaling time - where we sit together on a Sunday afternoon and all take a few minutes to write (or draw) about our week - each person writes on their own paper and puts it into their own binder and it fills up over time.

I also hope to create another form of journal using technology - an app called Wonderful Days on the iPad/iPod/iPhone - it seems fantastic and it can be printed out or saved as a pdf - both of which I can share & save. This is another purchase I would like to make - the iPhone - so I can take and edit photos while we are out and about without having to carry a separate camera and upload those straight to my journal and my blog!

So here it is - my first blog post in our new blog - a fresh start! Here's to new beginnings!